Comparative analysis of students' attitudes toward their classmates with disabilities

Introduction. The interest towards the integration of students with disabilities has increased in the education sector. The attitudes toward this group are one of the most relevant aspects of study. In our country there is a lot of research on this topic, but none of them focused on students at different stages. Our study examines students' attitudes toward students with disabilities depending on their course and formative stage. Also, if we compare the attitude influences meet some students with disabilities. Method. 626 students participated. Of these, 360 of the University of Alicante and 266 from a secondary school in the same locality (Espafia). We designed a questionnaire consisting of a Likert scale of 1 to 6 (1 = Strongly Disagree, 6 = strongly agree) to 8 items which we estimate the attitudes of students. The data were analyzed using various covariance and univariate analysis. Results. The results indicate differences in the attitudes of participating students on the basis of the course, the formative stage and the deal with people with disabilities. Discussion and conclusions. Our results suggest that university students show a more positive attitude than high school students. It also appears that students who interact with disabled peers indicate greater level of awareness of disability.